In lithography, there is an ongoing desire to reduce the size of features in a lithographic pattern in order to increase the density of features on a given substrate area. In photolithography, the push for smaller features has resulted in the development of technologies such as immersion lithography and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, which are however rather costly.
A potentially less costly road to small features (e.g., nanometer sized features) that has gained increasing interest is so-called imprint lithography, which generally involves the use of a “stamp” (often referred to as an imprint template or an imprint lithography template) to transfer a pattern onto a substrate. An advantage of imprint lithography is that the resolution of the features is not limited by, for example, the emission wavelength of a radiation source or the numerical aperture of a projection system. Instead, the resolution is mainly limited to the pattern density on the imprint lithography template.
Imprint lithography involves the patterning of an imprintable medium on a surface of a substrate to be patterned. The patterning may involve bringing together a patterned surface of an imprint lithography template and a layer of imprintable liquid medium (e.g., moving the imprint lithography template toward the imprintable medium, or moving the imprintable medium toward the imprint lithography template, or both) such that the imprintable medium flows into recesses in the patterned surface and is pushed aside by protrusions on the patterned surface. The recesses define pattern features of the patterned surface of the imprint lithography template. Typically, the imprintable medium is flowable when the patterned surface and the imprintable medium are brought together. Following patterning of the imprintable medium, the imprintable medium is suitably brought into a non-flowable or frozen state (i.e. a fixed state), for example by illuminating the imprintable medium with actinic radiation such as UV radiation. The patterned surface of the imprint lithography template and the patterned imprintable medium are then separated. The substrate and patterned imprintable medium are then typically processed further in order to pattern or further pattern the substrate. The imprintable medium may be provided in the form of droplets (e.g. deposited by ink jet printing) on the surface of a substrate to be patterned, but may alternatively be provided using spin coating or the like.
In some instances, imprint lithography may be used to imprint a pattern onto a substrate which has previously received a pattern (or more than one pattern). Where this is the case, it is desirable to align the patterned surface of the imprint template with the pattern already present on the substrate. One known way in which this may be achieved uses alignment marks provided on the imprint template and on the substrate. The relative positions of the imprint template alignment marks and the substrate alignment marks are measured using one or more detectors. The substrate (and/or the imprint template) is then moved with respect to the imprint template (and/or with respect to the substrate) until the substrate and the imprint template are aligned with respect to each other.